Hacking For The Holidays: Making Toys Accessible for Children with Disabilities – Dec. 2nd and 8th in NYC!

For many kids with physical disabilities playing with off-the-shelf toys is not possible, depending on their unique abilities a toy might not be accessible.

However, if a child can move their head, feet, arm, mouth or any other part of their body it is possible to use a switch to play with the toy.
Adding switch jacks to a toy will not affect the original quality of use, the existing buttons will operate as normal and kids who use accessibility switches will now be able to operate the toy.

The event is a neat twist on the traditional soldering workshop, with a great mission at it’s heart, and great people running it. It’s also a lot of fun!

The idea is simple:

you bring a (new) battery-powered toy to be modified and then donated.

John and his team will teach you how to solder up new hardware so that the toy can be used by a child with a disability.

Since all the accessibility jacks are the same, an standard 1/8″ mono audio jack you can make your own switches with a mono audio plug! Solder two wires to the plug and some wire tin foil around your knees. Tap knees together. You got yourself a fun switch.